Imported a 2/12 year old GSD 7 weeks ago. I walk her around our neighborhood at least twice a day. She gets barked at by most of the neighborhood dogs… but has never shown any concern… as if they aren’t even there. The only time she gets nervous is when a loose dog will approach her and try to check her out. She is completely fine if they pass right by… but if they get to close her hair goes up and she politely raises half a lip. No barking or growling.

Today we were on a ritualistic walk and one of the dogs was predictably barking at her. She stopped and did a bucking hop with one short bark (ruff) and then continued on her way.

I have never seen a dog do this. It almost looked playful… but then I am not sure. Is anyone familiar with this? I should also mention that she isn’t a barker… other dogs pass the house and come into our yard and although her awareness goes up… she doesn’t bark… just observes… so for her to bark however short it was, was a new behavior.

Thanks.

after that little bucking hop did she go down? i think you hit the nail on the head when you said it seemed playful.

No she didn't go down... if she had I would diffinately have figured she wanted to play. She does this with me when she is feeling playful.

Herr hop... reminded me of a rodeo horse. Her back was arched.

This is exactly how it started with my dog - even down to the 'bucking hop' thing, which is actually a form of dominance. Rather than "asking" the other dog nicely if it wants to play (ie: play bowing), this is saying to the other dog "I want you to play with me, and I want to be in charge while we're doing it." With my dog, it escalated to her wanting to dominate every single dog we encountered. She would try to get at any dog she saw, not to attack it, but to dominate it and then try to illicit play. *I* knew what she was doing, but to other people, it looked like she wanted to kill their dog. Because of her breed (she's a pit/chow), I did not want this perception of her by other people, so I had to do something to stop her behavior.

I started by working with her daily to brush up on her basic obedience and especially heel. Then I started teaching her what a clicker was, and that click=treat. When she understood that, within a day or so, is when I (with the trainer I was working with on this) took her down to the dog park where we could work her near other dogs but not have them interact. The off-leash area was fenced, so there was little chance of her encountering an off-leash dog. We began by working her in obedience (with her on the prong collar) back away from the fence, and gradually moved closer and closer as she became comfortable with the other dogs being that far away. Each dog is different, but for us, we were able to actually work her right up next to the fence by the 2nd session. We would heel her and go through sits and downs, both stationary and out of motion, and comes and basically everything she knew, and then we would break for a while and let her do her own thing. When she showed interest in the other dogs through the fence without hackling or growling or barking or anything aggressive, we clicked and treated and praised the HECK out of her, but the second she raised a hair or lip or did anything ugly towards one of the dogs through the fence, she got a verbal "NO" followed immediately by a MUCH-Harder-than-usual prong collar correction. We switched from that to the remote collar though because of all the nasty looks and comments we kept getting. It was easier with the ecollar anyway, because it didn't require any force on my part, and the correction level was exactly the same every time. Immediately following the correction we went right back into verbal praise, and then back to clicking and treating when she got up the courage to even look at the other dogs again. For the first few times, I think she just thought that looking at the other dogs caused the correction, but by the fourth or fifth time, she was starting to understand that it was her behavior that was causing them, not the other dogs at all.

I would suggest talking to a trainer with experience in aggression and dominance towards other animals. That would probably be your best and safest bet.

Well I am glad I asked that way I can get a very early handle on things.

I am still searching for a trainer that deals with aggression. I have posted it some of my threads and even emailed a couple of the mods to see if they new of anyone in our area (ME) but I am coming up with zero right now. I definitely want someone good. The last thing I need it a wannabe trainer making things worse.

I would even be willing to travel if I could just find someone.

Julia,
Your problem finding a trainer that can actually handle real dog aggression issues is a common one.

Of my last three clients that had dog with these issues, all three clients came to me from out of state. The shortest drive of the three was almost five hours, the longest was 13 hours. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Behavioral modification and training of aggressive dogs is a lot of work and requires a strong background and years and years of real experience ( which is why most trainers won't deal with dogs that display aggression ).
I wish that there was a larger body of skilled trainers that were willing or able to deal with these types of dogs, but sadly...there isn't. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Funny, I was debating posting "hey why don't you drive to GA and train with Will" earlier - but I was thinking it might be a little far <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Hey Will,

You start writing that book yet? Some day when the ol noggin starts to go you might need a refresher. I'm sure it would be a good seller as well.

Howard

I'm past two hundreds pages for it already. I'm collecting the photo's at this stage.
The "Idiot's Guide to Getting Published" is a handy book, let me tell ya. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

So is being dominant during dog on dog play also a sign of aggression?